Sweden's Metal Shrine spoke with KREATOR mainman Mille Petrozza recently about a number of topics including their upcoming album, Phantom Antichrist. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Shrine: Where did the title Phantom Antichrist come from?

MP: "It's a metaphor. It was inspired by certain things that I read in the media, especially the death of Usama Bin Laden, who got killed and thrown into the ocean for religious reasons even though there are no such thing as a sea burial in the Muslim religion. It's a metaphor for control and for the state of the world at this time basically and that's also what most of the songs are about. You get your typical Kreator treatments where I talk about injustice, war, horror, pain and oppression of course."

Metal Shrine: What was it like working with Jens Bogren (OPETH, KATATONIA, BLOODBATH, AMON AMARTH, SYMPHONY X, PARADISE LOST) and was that something that you decided early on and what made you go with him?

MP: 'Well, we were basically looking for a new producer and there were a couple of people that I had in mind, but a friend of mine who worked with Jens, Nick in Paradise Lost, he recommended Jens in 2009 already. He was like “You should check him out, he's great!” and I checked out Nick's album and I was really enjoying it and I thought it sounded great and it was quite an organic sounding record, so when I first talked with Jens on the phone, it was either I work with him or I don't, but I got a great vibe from him and the most important thing, if you work with somebody for production, is that you like that person and when he makes a suggestion you have respect for it and he has respect for the band. I didn't really think too much about working with Jens because I had a great feel towards the guy. He's a metal head and he knows a lot about music. When I sent him the first demo tape he wasn't like 'Oh, this is great!', he was very critical, which I thought was great. He was never too enthusiastic, but if he liked something he was like 'Yeah!' and if he didn't like it, he made it better. To me he was the perfect producer and we had some really great times. Sweden is very cool for a recording situation. The people were very nice and it was nice living in Örebro. A nice little city. There was not much to do there, but if we went out it was always great. There were a couple of great nights we had there and it was good.'

Metal Shrine: You've been doing this for such a long time now, but do you still feel that you need a producer?

MP: "Yeah, definitely. In my opinion there are very few bands that can produce themselves without losing focus. I mean, you might focus on things but sometimes you… you know, when you're in the studio you're very emotional about your music and I think somebody from the outside is always more critical. If I was to record my own album and produce my own album, not only would it be more work, but I wouldn't know whether or not it's gonna be better. I trust people, I trusted Jens and I've trusted the people we've worked with in the past so, yeah, we need a producer. We've always done it with a producer. Sometimes we had producers that were great and sometimes we had producers that were ok, but it was always a good experience or an experience. Sometimes it was a bad experience, but most of the time it was great experiences. You always learn something."

Read more at Metal Shrine.

Last week Kreator released the second of three video trailers for Phantom Antichrist, which is due out via Nuclear Blast on June 1st (Europe) and June 5th (North America). Check out both below:

The following formats for Phantom Antichrist will be available:

- Jewel Case CD *
- 2LP Yellow Vinyl *
- 2LP Bi-Coloured Vinyl (Red/Black): limited to 500 copies, hand numbered *+
- 2LP Picture Vinyl **
- CD/DVD Digi Limited Edition: two digipacks in a slipcase **

* - Featuring Artwork by Wes Benscoter (DIO, BLACK SABBATH, SLAYER)

** - Featuring Artwork by Jan Meininghaus

Phantom Antichrist was produced at the famous Fascination Street Studio with renowned producer Jens Bogren (OPETH, KATATONIA, SOILWORK, DEVIN TOWNSEND, AMON AMARTH) in Örebro, Sweden.

The tracklist for Phantom Antichrist is as follows:

CD:

'Mars Mantra'

'Phantom Antichrist'

'Death To The World'

'From Flood Into Fire'

'Civilisation Collapse'

'United In Hate'

'The Few, The Proud, The Broken'

'Your Heaven In My Hell'

'Victory Will Come'

'Until Our Paths Cross Again'

'Iron Destiny' (Japan exclusive)

Limited Edition Bonus DVD:

Live At Wacken Open Air 2011:

'Choir Of The Damned'

'Hordes Of Chaos'

'War Curse'

'Coma Of Souls' / 'Endless Pain'

'Pleasure To Kill'

'Destroy What Destroys You'

'Phobia'

'Terrible Certainty' / 'Reconquering The Throne'

'Flag Of Hate' / 'Tormentor'

Live At Wacken Open Air 2008:

'The Patriarch'

'Violent Revolution'

'People Of The Lie'

'Europe After The Rain'

The official video for the title track of Phantom Antichrist -produced by Grupa13 (BEHEMOTH, ELUVEITIE, AMON AMARTH) - can be viewed below:

For more details visit Kreator-terrorzone.de.